Structured Indexes on Results of Function Applications Over Data

1. A computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon a data structure, wherein the data structure is generated by a method for querying data, comprising: a first data field containing an object; and a second data field containing data associated with the object, the data being derived from a functional invocation over the data, the functional invocation comprising a table valued function, wherein the method for querying data comprises: receiving an indexed view for the functional invocation, determining if the query is satisfied by the index view by determining if the query matches the index view; applying the indexed view as an index to the functional invocation over the data if the query is satisfied by the index view; introducing a back-join to the indexed view; applying the indexed view as an index to the functional invocation over the data if the query cannot be satisfied by the index view; and determining and storing a query result using the index to the functional invocation over the data, wherein determining the query result comprises performing an unnesting operation on nested data, further wherein the unnesting operation is a cross apply unnest operation, and further wherein the indexed view is a generalization of a plurality of partial indexes.

2. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the data is derived from an unnesting operation, and the first data field and the second data field comprise a clustering key.

3. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 2 , wherein the clustering key back-joins an indexed view to a base table.

4. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the data comprises XML valued data fields.

5. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 1 , wherein the data comprises multiple columns or multiple fields of a complex structure.

6. A computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon a data structure, wherein the data structure is generated by a method for querying data, comprising: a first data field containing an object; and a second data field containing data associated with the object, the data being derived from a functional invocation over the data, the functional invocation comprising a table valued function, wherein the method for querying data comprises: receiving an indexed view for the functional invocation, determining if the query is satisfied by the index view by determining if the query matches the index view; applying the indexed view as an index to the functional invocation over the data if the query is satisfied by the index view; introducing a back-join to the indexed view; applying the indexed view as an index to the functional invocation over the data if the query cannot be satisfied by the index view; and determining and storing a query result using the index to the functional invocation over the data, wherein determining the query result comprises performing an unnesting operation on nested data, wherein the unnesting operation is a cross apply unnest operation, and wherein performing the unnesting operation provides an unnested result, and further comprises indexing a view on the unnested result.

7. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 6 , wherein the data is derived from an unnesting operation, and the first data field and the second data field comprise a clustering key.

8. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 7 , wherein the clustering key back-joins an indexed view to a base table.

9. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 6 , wherein the data comprises XML valued data fields.

10. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 6 , wherein the data comprises multiple columns or multiple fields of a complex structure.